UCOMM Blog: Experience Matters

Thursday, November 3, 2016

With the Presidential Election a little more than a month away, union members are being heavily courted by both campaigns. While both candidates claim to be pro-labor one candidate actually has a record of working with unions, while the other has a long history of screwing them over.

Throughout the campaign Hillary Clinton is often looked at through the lens of the mainstream media which has been covering her for nearly 30 years. They focus on the sexy stories like an email scandal and who her husband has slept with. Often, they fail to cover the real work that Clinton did during her eight years as a Senator of the Great State of New York. Now the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) came out with a video highlighting some of the work she did to prevent a lockout of Local 97 utility members and to protect their jobs and livelihoods.

While Local 97 faced the worst situation that a union could face - layoffs and a possible lockout by an employer whose reputation was to play hardball, Clinton worked a "miracle" and put pressure the company to get back to the bargaining table. Within 48 hours, the company had not only restarted negotiations but the union was able to come to a contract and avoid a lockout. This is the kind of leadership that we need from a President. President Obama did it with the Verizon Strike twice. Check out the IBEW's full video below.